3-Cushion
PELOPENNESOS – Taking about a huge sensation at the start of the World Cup in Pelopennesos. Four Belgians, making part of the world top, took the start in the main tournament, three of them are already send home. Eddy Merckx, Roland Forthomme and Eddy Leppens have missed the train, the Koreans are the star players so far in Greece and present themselves in current three cushion as the Belgians in their famous years.
Jung Han Heo overpowered Eddy Leppens in the first session, Choong-Bok Lee defeated the world champion, Eddy Merckx and Kim Jae Guen scooped victory against another top player, Frenchman Jérémy Bury.
The magic names of Ceulemans, Vingerhoedt and Dielis nowadays sound like the Kim 's, Lee's, Kang's, Choi's and Cho's, from the country where three cushion is extremely popular. Around 800 Korean players have a professional status. Ten or twenty of them travel to tournaments around the world. And when they are in their own country, they work as a trainer in billiard clubs or as a manager in one of the 30.000 clubs , which are mainly based Seoul, Daejeon and Suwon.
,,What would be better for us,'' said one of the Belgian fans, is to let the Koreans first play against each other at the start of the tournament Then other players have a chance to win.’’
That’s a bit over the bridge, of course, because the supremacy didn’t deliver more than three Koreans winners of a World Cup tournament and they never won the World championship so far. But the rise of the Asians, also of the Vietnamese, is very spectacular.
With eight players they were greatly outnumbered in the last 32 in the Pelopennesos World Cup. There’s a big chance that they are still with five or six at the end of the day.
The Belgian delegation of four lost in the first round Roland Forthomme (against Torbjörn Blomdahl) and Eddy Leppens (against Jung Han Heo) and in the next session Eddy Merckx (Choong-Bok Lee). The Korean attacked on 20-20 in 17 with a run of 15 and closed the match two innings later with five.
Filippos Kasidokostas was the best winner in the second round with a swipe match against Raimond Burgman: 40-11 in 16. Jae Ho Cho, the Korean number one the ranking, escaped in the final stage against Anh Vu Duong 40-37 in 27. Jae Guen Kim, not among the top five in Korea, didn’t show any mercy with Jérémy Bury, who starred in the Korea World Cup with a run of 24 and now was punished for his poor performance: 40-25 in 28.